I don’t know that I’d list Bowie in that sentimental, all-time favorites list that I keep in my head, but I like Bowie a whole lot. Like Elvis Costello, he’s a sort of musical chameleon, adapting and changing pretty much at his whim throughout much of his career. It’s a quality that makes his music more cover-friendly, I think. Take, for instance, that “Modern Love” cover up there – if you haven’t listened to it yet, do so right away because it is beautiful in a heartbreaky kind of way – it’s recognizable as “Modern Love” but it is totally transformed, and not because the band is doing anything crazy with it, either; they’ve simply slowed it down and changed the instrumentation and it goes from dance anthem to intimate and vulnerable.

Of course, being a Wes Anderson fan, I had to put something from the The Life Aquatic soundtrack up; Seu Jorge’s acoustic, Portuguese takes on Bowie standards are omnipresent in the movie and eminently listenable.